t was not unscathed by the
Great Rebellion, for in 1643 it was occupied by Sir Thomas Mauleverer, a
Parliamentary officer, whose soldiery broke into the minster and
shattered the magnificent glass in the great east window, and doubtless
much other glass besides. At the end of the war the manorial rights were
sold to Lord Fairfax, and the Chapter was again dissolved, "one who
called himself Dr. Richardson" being "appointed to preach in the minster
by the Parliament, tho' in all probability he was never in any Orders,
Presbyterian or Episcopal."[29] The Chapter was revived at the
Restoration, but all its members were new save one.

In the same year (1660) the central spire, which had been injured by
lightning in 1593, fell through the roof, wrecking many of the beautiful
canopies of the stalls. The damage to the choir and other parts of the
church, estimated at L6000, was repaired with money raised under a brief
from Charles II., but the spire was never rebuilt, and in 1664, to avoid
any further catastrophe, the western spires, though sound, were
deliberately removed.[30] The place of the spires was ill supplied by
the erection of battlements and pinnacles, which were renewed in 1797.

It was perhaps at this period that the west gate of the precincts was
pulled down--a mediaeval structure which contained at least seven rooms,
and which stood at the bottom of Kirkgate. The graveyard in the middle
ages contained a cross, at which a service was held on Palm Sunday;
also, possibly, a mortuary chapel and a well associated with St.
Wilfrid--(not, of course, the St. Wilfrid's well which now fills the
public baths). Of these things there is now not a trace, save, perhaps,
the stump of the cross, near the south wall of the nave. Nor are there
any undoubted remains of the mediaeval wall which enclosed the precincts,
except the fragment with an archway in it, which still forms the
southern entrance. The mediaeval prisons, which belonged respectively to
the Archbishop and the Chapter, have long vanished, as has also that
which appertained to the Court of Canon Fee, but there is a Liberty
prison of some age in 'Stammergate.' Most of the archiepiscopal palace
had disappeared by 1830, but there was still a portion which was used as
the court-house of the Liberty. In that year this was pulled down, and
the present court-house was built upon the site. A memory of the Palace
survives in 'Hall Yard,' and there still remains what is, perhaps